The preparation and planning stage is an essential part of the writing process. If a student tries to write an essay without first considering their audience, purpose, controlling idea, and argument, the result is typically an essay that seems aimless, full of disconnected sentences. Mapping out ideas and organization structure before beginning to write a first draft gives your essay direction and focus.

Brainstorm

To brainstorm means to write down as many ideas as you can, as quickly as you can, without paying attention to quality of sentences or the completion of a thought. Here are reasons to brainstorm before writing an essay:

  • It helps us discover how we truly feel about the essay topic
  • It helps us organize our ideas
  • It can generate new, unexpected ideas
  • It gives us a large number of points which we can then narrow down in order to use only the strongest.

Outline

If an essay has a body, the outline is the skeleton—a basic framework of the essay showing the organization of the controlling ideas and main supporting points. Making an outline allows the writer to structure the essay in a logical way and helps the ideas to flow naturally. Here is the basic structure of an essay outline. Keep in mind that the size of an outline will depend on the length of the assignment:

  • Introduction
    • Thesis –
  • Body 1
    • Main Idea –
      • Support:
        • Details:
  • Body 2
    • Main Idea –
      • Support:
        • Details:
  • Body 3
    • Main Idea –
      • Support:
        • Details:
  • Conclusion
    • Restate Thesis –

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